What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

Over at Amy’s – to whom I tip my biretta  o{]:¬)  someone made a comment that … well… let her say it:

I’m wondering if the priest at my territorial parish (which I no longer attend) will now finally stop saying "the Lord is WITH you." He’s not real big on rubrics.

This reminds me of a marvelous quip a reader of my weekly column in The Wanderer sent me.  His priest also blurted "The Lord is with you!".  To which he and others replied "And MAYBE with you!"

And to the writer of that comment at Amy’s I must say, "Yes, one day the priest will stop saying that." 

Our friend Diogenes has skewered the craven Fr. Thomas "Bear The Brunt" Reese, SJ, and his ilk with an elegant twist of the left-wing’s favorite stilettos (and I don’t exclude the reference to "heels", in more than one way).  Here is the whole thing.  If you don’t subscribe to CWN, just to get Diogenes, you ought to.

The pure sweet springs of the English language—the tongue of Shakespeare, Dryden, and Sr. Joan Chittister—are being contaminated by Vatican pollutants, and the Woodstock Center is protesting.

"This is another example of Rome taking authority away from bishops and bishops’ conferences. Basically, it’s saying that people in Rome—including people for whom Spanish and German is their first language—know how to translate the Mass into English better than the American bishops and the other English-speaking bishops do," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center in Washington, D.C.

Dear Father Reese,

This Congregation thanks you for your valuable comments regarding the peril of submitting English translations of Latin liturgical texts to the judgment of non-English speakers. Your cautions are duly noted. Perhaps it is opportune to point out that, in the quotation above, the word "taking" should not be understood as a participle modifying "Rome"; it is, rather, the gerund. Therefore, conformity to the rules of English grammar requires the correction to "This is another example of Rome’s taking authority away …"

Wishing you, and your spirit, every blessing, I am,

faithfully dynamically equivalently yours,

Akpan Udo Okon
Under-Sec’y
Dept of Anglophone Patronisation
Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments
Rome

In the AP story being sprayed around widely, you read (bold and numbers mine):

Some have worried about changing a fundamental rite of worship that is so much a part of Catholic identity, especially now.

1) Mass attendance has been declining and the 2) priest shortage has left a growing number of churches without a resident cleric.

Does anyone but me find the juxtaposition of these phrases amazingly ironic?  Does anyone make a connection between…

a) changing the rites of worship and
b) the change in attendance of those rites and the
c) change in those who celebrate on behalf of the Christian people? 

In fact, if you

i) change the actions and the words of the rites and thereby you
ii) change what people believe you consequently
iii) change what people are prepared to do about that belief.

There is a fancy Latin phrase for this, and you all know it.  Simply put, there is a reciprocal relationship between how we pray and what we believe.

We need a good translation in keeping with Rome’s norms.

Here is one soundbite from His Excellency Bishop Donald W. Trautman, chair of the BCL and opponent of the norms of Liturgiam authenticam.  This says a great deal:

"I’m pleased that the text has been significantly amended. That made an important difference for me," said Bishop Trautman, ....

 

So, as long as the draft wasn’t actually the draft, he was okay with it.

If he is pleased with the changes, ... what could those changes be like?

There is a cutsie story in the WaPo about the first batch of girls being allowed to serve at the altar in the Diocese of Arlington.  Some quotes:

Taylor dreams of playing pro lacrosse. "I think I can be anything I want to be if I try hard enough," she said.

Um… except be a priest.

Taylor and Conor’s mom, Lyn McGee, said it was odd to have to tell her twins that one couldn’t do something that the other one could. "For this generation of girls, there is nothing they can’t do," McGee said. "This is probably the only thing in [Taylor’s] life she couldn’t do because she’s a girl."

You mean except be a priest, right?

"The girls, they were all like, ‘Yes! Yeah! Hurray!’ They were really excited," Conor said. And the boys? They’re cool with it, said Taylor. "They’re just like, ‘whatever.’ "

And so, one day, little Taylor and her, like… you know.. peeps… like might just say like "I, like, wanna like be a priest too!" 

And the Cardinal Prefect of the CDF will just respond, "Like, whatever…".

Has anyone told these girls yet that they cannot be priests?  Like, ever?

You get the feeling that this is a game of chicken and we, the Catholic faithful, are standing in the middle of the street.

Everyone knows how the votes went.  What we don’t know is precisely what the votes were about. 

They were about the new draft translation, right?  Well… yes and no.  First there was a vote on adapations to the draft.  Then there was a vote on the draft with the adaptations.

We don’t know what the adaptations were.  Therefore, we don’t know which draft they approved.

The adapations may be extensive.  If they are, then this signals the USCCB’s countermarch in the Translation War. 

His Eminence Francis Card. Arinze, Prefect of the CDWDS, indicated by letter last May that Rome will not approve anything that does not adhere to Liturgiam authenticam.  It is now Rome’s move.  Depending on the extent of the USCCB’s adapations, the Congregation and Vox Clara will study the adaptations, consult, modify, counter-propose, approve or reject. 

Get it?  This will take time, and the clock is ticking.  Cunctando regitur mundus.

When we know what the adaptations were, the smoke will have cleared and we will have a clearer view of the terrain.

In a Reuters piece we read:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – U.S. Catholic bishops on Thursday ended years of soul searching over whether Catholic politicians who support abortion rights should be denied communion, leaving the decision with local bishops. ...

LITERAL VERSION:

We decided not to decide.